Six A75-Based Motherboards For AMD’s A8 And A6 APUs

Asus F1A75-M Pro

Asus’ F1A75-M Pro goes several steps beyond its low-cost competitors by providing more USB 3.0 connectivity, more on-board graphics options, and greater discrete graphics support.

Though the board lacks DisplayPort output, Asus has most monitors covered with its selection of HDMI, VGA, and DVI connectors. Users with two HDMI or two DVI monitors can even use an adapter on the other digital connector, since these are cross-compatible.

Four USB 2.0 ports ease the installation of front-panel bay devices, such as card readers, in addition to the traditional port extension cables. Internal USB 3.0 is also available in addition to the I/O panel’s four ports, since two of the rear ports are interfaced through a third-party PCIe-based controller.

Llano-based APUs have twenty PCIe 2.0 lanes, so Asus adds a second graphics card slot capable of running in x4 mode. While that might be fast enough for certain mid-range 3D cards, its probably most useful for adding displays that won't be tasked with gaming. And choose carefully. A dual-slot card in that bottom slot would almost certainly conflict with the USB 2.0 and 3.0 headers lining the board's bottom edge.

Switches on the side support Asus’ TPU automatic-overclocking utility and EPU energy saving modes, while the MemOK button underclocks memory to make it easier to boot up with low-quality modules installed.

Like its lower-cost rivals, the F1A75-M Pro only includes two SATA cables. While we would have liked to see four cables accompany such a fully-featured board, we earnestly question why Asus didn’t include at least three.